


a ring of endless light

by Celesma



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel True Forms, Angelic Possession, Angst, Family, Gen, Mental Illness, Vessel Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2018-01-24 20:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1615952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celesma/pseuds/Celesma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It doesn't matter, she remembers her father saying sometimes, his words somehow managing to pierce the womb of wings and Grace and the ineffable power of the Host in which she'd been submerged, like a hapless diver being dragged to the bottom of the ocean. You take me, she remembers him saying.</i> </p>
<p>Castiel tells Claire her father is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a ring of endless light

**Author's Note:**

> Written because I found it pretty inconceivable that Castiel wouldn't have taken the time to let the Novaks know when Jimmy died (which, for the record, I'm pretty sure happened back in Swan Song). Some of the backstory involving Jimmy was taken from a meta essay on tumblr that I unfortunately can't find now. The title also comes from a book of the same name by Madeleine L'Engle (because it's one of my favorite YA novels to deal with the themes of death and loss, and because I tend to associate the phrase "a ring of endless light" with seraphim).
> 
> ETA: Okay, I found the meta post [here](http://dottewa.tumblr.com/post/60211350941/feministgrammarianhippieartist-i-mean-angel) – read it and marvel (or weep, because FEELS).

Claire does a lot of things to try and fill the hole.

None of them work, obviously – but then, maybe that doesn't really matter. It's not like feeling like a complete human being again is going to bring her father back. It doesn't stop her from trying, though: trying to stitch up the gaping tear in her soul that Castiel left behind, that day three years ago. She's thirteen now – coming up on fourteen, actually – and so far she's dabbled with drugs (a group straight out of _Freaks and Geeks_ had been passing around a joint behind the school bleachers and she'd just sort of inserted herself without preamble), made out with a different boy on three separate occasions, and rounded second base in the back of a decrepit 70s Cadillac (and boy, doesn't _that_ sound like a Lifetime movie cliché when you say it out loud). She'd felt so guilty and unclean at the last that she'd sworn never to do it again, sworn never to dishonor her father's sacrifice like that

( _it doesn't matter_ , she remembers him saying sometimes, his words somehow managing to pierce the womb of wings and Grace and the ineffable power of the Host in which she'd been submerged, like a hapless diver being dragged to the bottom of the ocean, _y_ _ou take me_ , she remembers him saying)

The supreme irony is that Claire continues to pray, and goes to church. It just isn't God that she's praying to anymore.

Not that she ever asks Castiel for anything; she's not that hopeful. Or maybe she just doesn't want to dash the little hope she _does_ have. (After all, there's only one thing she really _wants_.) Her prayers are more like one-sided conversations where she talks about her day, sans the bad stuff she's been getting into. She has it down to a pretty exact science by now: no matter where she is, or how tired she might be, she always gets down on her knees and talks to the angel before passing out for the night.

(Maybe Castiel hears and passes the messages on to her dad. She can only hope that's the case.)

Claire also continues to go to Catholic school, mostly because she hadn't seen any reason to break up that routine, even after they'd moved. And anyway, she derives a sort of perverse enjoyment out of how thoroughly she impresses her religious studies teachers with her knowledge of Judeo-Christian canon (not only does she know the name of every single angel in living human memory, she can also recall names that had never been committed to any kind of oral or written records: names too dense and sinister and _alien_ to ever successfully roll off of human tongues). More importantly, though, parochial school provides her with the most wholesome avenue for filling the angel-shaped hole in her yet: research.

Castiel is a seraph. That much she knows, from the little time they spent sharing the same headspace. If she thinks about it too long or too hard, tries to actually _picture_ the shape of the thing that had been inside of her for all of five minutes, a searing pain tears down the side of her skull and her eyes start to burn. It's like an optical illusion that dances just on the periphery of her vision, punishing her if she dares to look at it head on, to deconstruct its mysticism. But Claire's only human; and much like any other human who picks at a scab or chews an open sore inside their cheek, she goes on trying to make sense of the creature that had ruined her family's life. The only thing she comes away with is a very vague impression of a serpent, miles upon miles of holy fire coiled in upon itself like a loop of flaming intestine. 

The books in the school library talk about a hierarchy of angels, radiating outwards from the Divine Throne of God. The seraphim, among a few other angel classes, occupy the position closest to God. One book describes them as "the serpent fire of love," dragon-like creatures with six wings, who spend most of their days singing glory to God. Castiel hadn't seemed particularly loving or musical when he was inside her, but then it was hard to imagine how something that huge could even fit inside her to begin with. And anyway, that really wasn't even a fair estimation of Castiel. It's her own bitterness over losing her father (and sympathy for her mother, who _hates_ Castiel and threw away her rosary the second time Dad disappeared) that makes her so uncharitable towards the angel.

Because she _knows_  – for a fact – that Castiel had never left her and her mother alone. He'd been looking out for them all this time, just like Dad would have wanted. That knowledge had been irreversibly driven home to her the third time she stepped into her new school in Boston and the principal looked at her with a face that wasn't his. Claire had tried to turn away without exhibiting any emotion, but the demon had seen the reaction on her face and she heard him making a beeline for her. Then there was a violent flapping sound – like an enormous predatory bird had just crashed into the building – and she turned around just in time to watch as Dad _(Castiel)_ slapped a hand to the man's forehead, not once looking at her, filling the hallways with a brilliant light. The next day she got to hear all about how the principal had had a "nervous breakdown" and had gone to some clinic up in Maine to recover.

The next time the angel interceded on her behalf, she'd been followed home after a tutoring session in the gym. The guy stalking her walked with a bold swagger and was way bigger than her. Before it could even occur to her to pray for help, there had been that same sound of fluttering wings and suddenly the guy was lying on the ground with a broken leg, crying for an ambulance.

(Claire had rescued the rosary from the trash after Mom threw it out. She uses it to pray, sometimes.)

At the same time, she knows she never wants to be taken by him again – not even if it means filling the void inside her. It had been cold and scary and _wrong_. 

God only knows what it must be like for Dad.

* * *

Claire knows she's dreaming when she opens her eyes.

For one thing, it isn't fall. She's standing outside of a forest – spectacularly dense with the patchwork colors of leaves – and it takes her a full minute to place where she is. She feels a little foolish when she realizes it's the outskirts of Jackson Hole, a gorgeous valley town in Wyoming located right at the Teton Range. It had been a special place for her and Dad – he'd taken her on a road trip out West as an early tenth birthday present, and Jackson Hole had been one of her very favorite stops. The crisp autumnal air, the dude ranches, and the ski resorts had all combined to make the experience a magical one for her. A wild elk approaches from her right, and she reaches out with one tentative hand to stroke its antlers. It's all exactly as she remembered it.

She hears the telltale flutter of wings and directs her gaze into the trees. Castiel is standing there, peering at her as if she is some particularly curious specimen of human.

She isn't glad to see him. He's never bothered to visit her before; why would he come to her now? Obviously something terrible must have happened and he's steeling himself to deliver the news to her. She doesn't _think_ it's the Apocalypse – there'd been some worrying signs back when she was still in middle school, but they had more or less faded out of public perception – and if he's not here to warn her about the end of the world, then it must have something to do with Dad. She waits for him to come to her and doesn't say anything.

Of course, once he's approached her but offered nothing in the way of greeting (just keeps staring at her like he did on that winter day three years ago), she can't help herself from making the first move towards conversation. "What do you want?" It's not so much a question as a means of demonstrating her hostility, a way of telling him that she doesn't forgive him, even though that really isn't true.

"Claire," he says. The voice is her father's but it doesn't sound like him at all. For one thing, Dad never talked like a chain smoker (he never even touched a drop of alcohol while he was raising her, with the obvious exception of when he took Mass), and he never said her name as if it was some kind of question that had yet to be solved, like when she had to write proofs for the existence of evil in the world as part of her theodicy test, proofs that never even came close to convincing her of God's goodness. The pensive tone makes her feel even worse, convinces her more than ever that _something_  had to have happened. "Claire," he says again. "Are you well?"

She shrugs, looking more calm than she feels. "You're not really here to ask me that, are you."

"No," he admits. "But I still want to hear it."

" _You_ want to hear it? Not Dad?"

"I can let him know, if you would like."

"I want to talk to him."

"You can't," he says. And then he delivers the news Claire knew all along he'd come here to give. She braces herself in the moment he takes to inhale, before pronouncing: "Your father is dead, Claire." And even though she's ready to hear it, she still has to fight against the choked noises that threaten to come tunneling up her throat, still has to blink rapidly to close off the flow of tears.

"When did it happen?" she asks, in a near-whisper.

"A few years ago. I had intended to tell you much earlier, but – " 

"How? Who did it?"

"It was the Morningstar. He killed us."

"Lucifer?"

He's surprised that she isn't more shocked by this, as well as disturbed that she seems to know exactly who he's talking about. She can almost hear the cogs in his head turning as he wonders what other things he left behind when he took her as a vessel. (Or rather, the things he _took_.) He pauses a moment before nodding. "Yes. The Winchesters and I averted the End Times, but not... not without casualties. We lost innocent people, good people."

Claire nods back at him, echoing his gesture. "So, he's gone." She stares into the bright blue sky, which seems suddenly cold and empty, utterly bereft of comfort. "He's gone and I'm never going to see him again." 

"He is in Heaven." Which is just a nicer way of saying _yes, exactly_.

"How are you even here talking to me, if you're dead? Did God give you time off for good behavior?"

"Claire..." His voice is so sad. She looks at him. He has grown so much more accustomed to his body than the last time she saw him. He has a facial vocabulary that is all his own now, so that when his mouth turns down at one corner and his eyes grow bigger to express sorrow, he doesn't look anything like Jimmy Novak. He looks like Castiel the angel. "When we died, I could feel your father's soul being ripped away from my own. I tried to keep him inside of me, but I immediately fell unconscious. When I woke up, I was... in this body. Alone." He shakes his head. "I don't know why God would bring me back and not him."

Claire isn't much surprised to hear that God would be that fickle. But Castiel sounds so miserable when he says that. Maybe seraphs really _did_ spend all their time in rings of light singing _holy holy holy_ , when they weren't causing untold destruction down on earth. Maybe Castiel really did love God every bit as much as she loved Dad, felt as abandoned by Him as she did when her father first said yes and walked away. "Is Dad happy, where he is?" she asks.

"He is at peace," the angel affirms. "He misses you and Amelia terribly, though."

"Is he angry? Does he hate you?"

"Only sometimes." His mouth quirks upward humorlessly. "I'm sorry, Claire. So very sorry." She knows that he means it, and so she can't really hate him (if ever she was capable of hating him to begin with). He looks at her like he wants to come closer to her – for what she doesn't know – but at length he holds himself back. "Do you know why I took your father as my vessel, and not someone else?"

"I already know why." Claire can't keep the sneer out of her voice, and he winces. "It's because he _fit_ you the best, wasn't it? Like he was just a set of clothes." And now she's already talking about him in the past tense. As if she'd believed all along that her father was gone, and had just needed the angel to confirm it.

"That is not entirely true." Castiel takes a few steps forward. "Yes, your father's bloodline was best suited to host seraphim. But that is not primarily why I came to him. I came because I heard his prayers."

She stares at him, and for a moment he averts his gaze. Then: "Your father wanted me to tell you this. He wanted you to understand why he said yes. That it wasn't because he didn't love you or your mother, or was dissatisfied with his life. Yes, there was an element of pride to his consent, but – "

"Just get to the point," Claire says wearily. She doesn't want to hear it any more than Castiel wants to tell it, so the only alternative seems to be to hurry him through it.

"Very well." The angel nods. "Long before I ever met your father, he routinely experienced religious visions." He's quick to correct her when her eyes widen. "No, they weren't real. Did you ever wonder, Claire, why Jimmy only worked a few days a week, and spent most of his time taking care of you? Why Amelia spent so many weekends working overtime at the hospital?"

Claire realizes she had never given the arrangement any real thought. It was just a fact of life, as much as Jesus healing the lepers or walking on water (stories Dad had told her while she sat on his knee, or as he bustled about the kitchen preparing dinner while she sat on a stool and proudly trimmed the ends off the green beans – her regular contribution to the family meal, and extra incentive for her to eat her vegetables). It was something that set her apart from the other kids: made her special, made her different. Granted, it had also served to bring her closer to her father than her mother, making their current circumstances that much more painful... wordlessly, she shakes her head.

"Your father grew up with a mental illness. He had schizophrenia." Castiel delivers the news calmly, seemingly unaware of how Claire's throat tightens and her chest grows empty. Even before the angel continues she can feel so many things falling into place, taking on a new and terrible significance – her mother's fear when Dad insisted _this is **real,** Ames, there really are angels,_ his refusal to take pills (and now that she's thought about it, hadn't those pills always been sitting on her parents' nightstand?). It's like suddenly being able to make out one of those stupid Magic Eye puzzles, where the secret message was that you were adopted or had a terminal illness or something. "When he and Amelia were wed, he was receiving treatment for his condition. It wasn't until after you were born that he tried to support both of you on his own. Unfortunately, he failed. It fell to your mother to keep food on the table and a roof over your head. Because of this, your father forever felt... inadequate. He prayed to God for years that he might be of some use to Him, seeing as he was – _thought_ he was – a failure to his own family."

"But he wasn't a failure at all," Claire whispers. She thinks she might actually cry now. She takes several deep breaths. "Mom and I, we... we loved him so much. He was the best dad in the world. And you – "

_You took advantage of him._ She can't finish vocalizing the thought, it's so terrible. To think of Dad kneeling by his bedside, night after night, appealing to a higher power that he might be a force for good in the world... he must have been so happy when God finally sent a messenger to take him up on his offer. And look at how that childlike faith had been rewarded.

Something of her outrage must show in her face, because Castiel looks away. "I'm not proud," he says. "We... _I_... didn't understand, then. We were taught to take a vessel by any means necessary. Certainly, I would have left your father alone if he had refused. And I never lied to him. But – "

"Yeah? And what do you want, a medal for that?" She's pretty sure whom he would have gone to next if Dad had told Castiel where to go, anyway.

Castiel closes his eyes. "I'm sorry, Claire. I thought I was doing something good for him. I never wanted any of this for you or Jimmy. I swear it."

There's a silence then, a silence in which Claire struggles to regain her bearings. She won't cry. She _won't_. She can feel Castiel's eyes on her, watching her helplessly. Finally he says:

"Claire, will you... tell your mother what I told you?"

"Why not tell her yourself?"

"I'm afraid she would not be receptive to my presence."

"Oh, because I'm so much more understanding?" She knows she's sounding hysterical, but it's still better than crying. "I was your vessel for five minutes, so you knew I'd at least hear you out, even if I hated your guts?" Castiel visibly flinches, and she almost feels bad for him, especially since that second part's a lie: she could never hate him. Even after everything – even after _this_  – she just can't bring herself to do it.

(And actually, that's the most bizarre thing of all, to know that she's dealing with an angel who _feels_. Castiel had been a cosmic, impersonal force when he was inside her – something that was at once bigger than the entire universe and smaller than the tiniest subatomic particle – and yet, that wasn't really _him_. There were traces of warmth there, traces she had intensely, viscerally sensed him trying to squash, because such feelings were Not Correct. And when she had felt her hand threading through her father's hair, imparting comfort to him in his dying moments, that had been all Castiel. Like he just couldn't help himself, for all that he'd been programmed to remain indifferent.)

"Why did you come here, Castiel?" she finally asks. "Why do you even _care_? I thought angels were all about the greater good. There's no reason to tell me my dad's gone. It's not like it benefits you in any way."

Another silence. Claire feels like her chest is going to crumple in on itself. "I don't know," Castiel confesses. He sounds as bewildered as Claire feels. "I don't know why I am so often emotionally compromised by your kind." He says the words _emotionally compromised_ like it's some kind of terrible design flaw. "All I know is... I made a promise to your father. I promised Jimmy I'd take care of you. I would be remiss in my duties if I did not tell you the truth."

_The truth._ The truth was that Dad was dead, and that when he was still alive he suffered from a debilitating mental illness, one that had more or less led him to make the choices he had. He'd never had a chance.

(And wasn't it just possible that the angels had engineered this from the very beginning? She doesn't know all that much about mental illness, but she remembers her science teacher Mr. Watson talking about the heredity of certain diseases, how things like obsessive-compulsive disorder carried across generations. Couldn't the angels have crossed some genetic wires way back in the Novak family tree? Not Castiel: she already knew _he_ wouldn't be capable of such a thing, but she didn't put it past the rest of them... and if _that_ was true, how many more vessels had been toyed with in such a way? Did _anyone_ really have any free will at all?)

"You have a funny way of keeping your promises," Claire mutters. She bows her head, which seems suddenly too heavy for her to hold up. The conversation has aged her. She stares at the autumn leaves sweeping over her toes. "If that's all you came to tell me, then just go."

She listens for the inevitable flap of wings, but it doesn't come. Instead the grass around her feet shifts and suddenly there's her dad's nice dress shoes – his _church_ shoes – pressing up against her sneakers. The sight is too much for her and she squeezes her eyes shut, at the same moment that a hand descends on her head.

"Take care of yourself, Claire," Castiel says.

The gesture was one that belonged to her father, but there's nothing of him in it now. Dad's movements had been warm and free and easy; Castiel moves with a stiffness that betrays his inhuman nature, his fingers sinking slowly into her hair as if he _hadn't_ intimately occupied every cell of her just a few short years ago. And yet Claire can still _feel_ her dad in there somewhere, in the way his fingernails (unconsciously, probably) gently scratch her scalp, in the way his church shoes toe against her sneakers, like when Dad used to play footsies with her under the dinner table.

She thinks of how she'll never feel that again... which makes her think of all the other things she'll never get to experience now. Six months ago had been her middle school graduation. Mom had been there, smiling through her tears and holding a camcorder as Claire went up to the stage to receive her diploma, but Claire knew beyond a doubt that _Dad_ would have been the one recording every moment for posterity, even (especially) that embarrassing moment when her English Lit teacher had approached them to enthuse about Claire's perfect essay scores. That _Dad_ would have been the one to take them to Friendly's for ice cream afterward, that _Dad_ would have been the one bragging to the waiter about his "brilliant baby girl," that _Dad_  –

Phantom memories of her father continue to trickle to the fore of her mind, and the dam –  _finally_  – bursts.

"Daddy," she says in a crumbling voice. She steps forward and falls against his chest, her tears staining his blue silk tie (the tie she had given him for his birthday one year, and remembering that makes her cry even harder); she thrusts both arms beneath his trenchcoat and pulls herself closer to him, leaving not an inch of open space between their bodies, listening to his heartbeat. God, she thinks _(godgodgod)_ , it even _smells_ like him, and she can't take it, not at all, she misses him so much –

The words are coming out of her in a flood now, _Da_ _ddy Daddy Daddy_. After a long, long moment – probably he doesn't want to do anything that will take her out of the moment, remind her that this isn't _really_ Dad – she feels the angel maneuver her father's arms, carefully wrap them around her. The warmth and safety they impart, however, are all his.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs into her hair. It takes her a second to realize he's apologizing for something new now. "I shouldn't have come to you in this form. Your last memory of your father shouldn't be of an imposter wearing his face."

She looks up at him to ask him what he means, but the words die in her throat as his face becomes framed in an unbearably bright light, and _wings_ (six of them; the books were right after all) unspool from his back in long, winding shadows. The intense play of light and shadow makes her head start to hurt, just like when she tried to picture his true form on her own. She might have gone on looking anyway (wondering _did those wings really fit inside me?_ ), but one of his hands comes up and covers her eyes. Then there isn't a hand there at all but something much cooler and smoother and cleaner, like the curve of a claw; and she can feel the edges of her father's coat clutched in her hands melting into a warm, buttery light, spilling over her fingers and surrounding her, unmaking the emptiness she'd been walking around with for the last three years. Making her human again, _whole_.

She leans into the light, the heat it imparts drying the tears on her cheeks. By all rights it should be burning her up, and maybe it is. She knows if she looked down she'd see the grass scorched and blackened around her feet. But this is still a dream, and nothing really hurts in a dream; he wouldn't let it hurt her, anyway. She can feel his eyes on her again, only this time multiplied by several thousand. Thoughtlessly, she puts out a hand and her fingers brush against cold marble. She thinks it might be his face.

"Go see Mom," she urges him, feeling calmer now. "She needs to hear it from you. But don't go looking like Dad. Just... be yourself."

_That may be difficult._ He speaks with the voice he'd used to make her say yes. It vibrates inside her, a force both immaterial and frightening, and yet beautiful, more exceedingly _real_ than anything else to have ever existed. It would put the fear of God in anyone else, but – and maybe it's because she's been a vessel – it puts Claire completely at ease. She allows herself a little smile.

"Trust me. It'll be better this way."

_As you wish._

"Tell Dad I love him, too. Okay? I don't... I don't blame him for anything anymore."

Castiel only pauses for a moment before answering. _Yes, of course. He will be pleased to hear that._

"Can I still pray to you?"

That draws him up short. He'd probably decided she didn't know that he'd been listening to her all those times. And honestly, she hadn't been certain herself when she said that, but now she knows for sure: she can feel the marble grow warm beneath her hand, like a human face becoming flushed. Then the claw on her face shifts, brushing hair off of her forehead. The gesture is so much like Dad's that a shiver runs through her.

For all that she'd been affected by Castiel, thought about him, it'd never occurred to her that he might have been equally touched by her.

_I enjoy hearing from you, Claire,_ he tells her. _Yes. You can always pray to me._

* * *

When Claire awakens, the sun's rays are coming in bright and bold (though not, she thinks, anywhere near as bold as the light of Castiel's body behind her closed eyelids) through the sheer white curtains overhanging her windows. She looks over at her alarm clock and is surprised to see that it's way past noon. She wonders why Mom didn't get her up in time to go to school. She stretches and yawns, feeling extremely rejuvenated from last night's sleep. She wonders if Castiel had something to do with that, or if her body really had benefited that much from just a few extra hours' rest.

Then she hears Mom crying in the bedroom downstairs. So Castiel had already come and gone, then. Claire kicks off the covers and hurriedly changes out of her pajamas, preparing to go see her. Then her mouth drops open and she clutches her heart, lost in the grip of an even more momentous realization.

Castiel had fixed her. The void in her is gone. Completely gone.

She finishes throwing on her clothes, then kneels by the bedside. One good turn deserves another.

"Thanks, Castiel," she says. "I never really thanked you for anything you did for me. You didn't have to do it."

She doesn't expect an answer but starts when she feels a crisp breeze, redolent with the scent of apples, falling on her cheek like a caress. The voice in the back of her head is equally soft. _I am merely reversing the consequences of my own sins. I'm sorry I didn't realize what was happening to you sooner. That is not a burden you should have had to bear._

Leaning into the breeze, she sighs. "You dope. You know I don't blame you for that, right."

It almost sounds like he's smiling when he speaks. _If that is true, I am glad to hear it. But I still... I regret it._

Claire shakes her head, then keeps it bowed for a few moments longer, lost in the quiet solitude of the angel's presence. When she feels him withdraw from her – his final parting gift the scent of the Tetons, filling her lungs and giving her renewed strength – she issues a soft sigh of contentment and runs downstairs to comfort her mother. 


End file.
